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Archive for the ‘Girls Basketball’ Category

Mollie Bailey is money

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on February 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Kylie Van Velkinburgh had six points and two blocks Friday as the Wolf JV closed its season with a road victory. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

After beating Granite Falls, the young guns finished 9-7, best record of any CHS hoops team this season. (Amy King photo)

Best record in town.

Kicking off a four-games-on-one-court evening Friday at Granite Falls, the Coupeville High School JV girls basketball team got things going with a jolt.

Riding a game-winning three-ball in the final seconds from Mollie Bailey, the Wolves escaped with a 29-27 win, got a sweet bit of revenge, and capped a winning season.

The victory, which was payback for a loss to Granite earlier in the season, allows the JV to close at 5-3 in North Sound Conference play, 9-7 overall.

Despite playing less games than Coupeville’s other squads, thanks to Cedar Park Christian not having a girls JV team, the Wolf young guns have the most wins, and the highest winning percentage, of any CHS hoops team this winter.

The finale was a nice cap to another season under long-time Wolf basketball whisperer Amy King, who got her team going with a small challenge.

“Four games back-to-back (on the same court). I told the JV girls, who had the first game of the night, that their game would set the tone for the rest of the evening.

“And the battle began.”

The two teams went back and forth, exchanging big buckets and ferocious defensive stops all night.

Anya Leavell banked in a three-ball in the opening quarter, one of her two on the night, but the Wolves trailed 9-8 at the first break.

“We pressed, we got some steals, but struggled against their two posts, who used a high-low offense when possible for easy baskets,” King said. “We ran our offenses, got great steals – blocked and just worked together all night.

“Kylie Van Velkinburgh had some key blocks and hit a couple of shots tonight,” she added. “Anya had some nice fast breaks, slowed down for control and hit the layups.”

Coupeville flipped the script in the second quarter, taking a one-point lead to the locker room, only to see Granite knot things up at 20-20 heading into the final quarter.

With the two teams standing in the middle of the ring and exchanging rib shots, a big play here or there was liable to be the deciding moment.

Enter Bailey, the coolest cucumber in the bunch, the drummer who bops to her own beat, long braids slapping a rhythm on her back as she glides through life.

Clock madly churning down, the Wolves pulled off of a nifty fake on an inbound pass. Three players dove towards the girl with the ball, but Bailey went her own way.

A jab step forward, a pirouette back behind the arc, ball lands on her fingertips, eyebrow arches slightly, ball flips skyward, splashes through net, world goes bonkers, Bailey slightly nods.

As excited as Coupeville was when the three-ball rippled through the net, turning a one-point deficit into a two-point lead, there were still a few ticks left on the clock.

Granite got the ball up floor, but aggressive pressure from Wolf frosh Audrianna Shaw threw the Tigers off their pace and a potential game-tying shot was not going to drop.

“Time runs out and we all go crazy,” King said. “It was an awesome game to end our season. Very proud of these girls.”

Leavell paced the Wolves with 10 points, four steals and three assists, while Izzy Wells added seven points and four rebounds.

Van Velkinburgh (6), Bailey (5), and Shaw (1) rounded out the scoring attack, with Shaw filling up the stat sheet with four rebounds, three steals and three assists.

Abby Mulholland (three rebounds), Ivy Leedy, Morgan Stevens, Ja’Kenya Hoskins (two rebounds, two steals), Lily Leedy, and Alana Mihill all saw floor time, while injured stars Kylie Chernikoff and Kiara Contreras provided vocal bench support.

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End of one road, beginning of another

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Scout Smith slashes up-court Tuesday night. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Nicole Laxton (with flowers) was one of three senior hoops stars honored before Coupeville’s game against King’s.

A pack of Wolf JV girls prepares to attack. L to r, it’s Lily Leedy, Ivy Leedy, Abby Mulholland and Audrianna Shaw.

The shirt game is strong for Lindsey Roberts’ family.

Ja’Kenya Hoskins: “No, it’s my rebound and you can’t have it!”

Ema Smith shares Senior Night with her parents and big sis Ciara.

Coupeville swarms the ball-handler, causing her great distress.

The three amigos marinate in the moment.

It’s not THE end, but it is an end.

The Coupeville High School girls basketball team has a minimum of three games left in the 2018-2019 schedule, a regular season finale Friday at Granite Falls, then at least two playoff games.

But every postseason rumble is slated to be in a road gym, so Tuesday night’s bout against visiting King’s marked the final game played on the CHS floor for the Wolf seniors.

Four years ago, when the 2015-2016 basketball season kicked off, there were seven freshmen playing.

Jump forward to Jan. 2019, and Nicole Laxton, Ema Smith, and Lindsey Roberts remain from that group, having put in a complete four-year run.

As they exited Tuesday, they thanked their families, their support crew and coaches David and Amy King.

“Thank you for having so much patience with us over the years,” Smith said in her farewell speech. “Everyone knows we are a lot to handle.”

For Laxton, every moment she spent on the floor, whether it be practices or games, was special.

“These last four years of basketball have been amazing,” she wrote. “I loved every second of every season.”

Roberts, the rare player to have been on the varsity from day one, gave thanks to everyone who played a role in her growth as a player, and young woman.

To cap things, she paid tribute to her many teammates.

“You guys are some of the funniest, weirdest, but nonetheless best teammates I could ever ask for,” Roberts wrote. “Whether you guys know it or not, you all have inspired me to be a better player and teammate on and off the court.

“You guys have no limit and I believe in you all so much!”

 

To see more Senior Night and action photos from Tuesday, pop over to:

https://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/Coupeville-Basketball-2018-2019-boys-and-girls/GBB-2019-01-29-vs-Kings/

And remember, when you purchase glossies from John Fisken, a percentage of the money comes back around, used when he gives out two scholarships each year to CHS seniors.

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Play the best, sometimes you get zapped

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Lindsey Roberts (left) and Ema Smith were two of the three Wolf hoops stars honored Tuesday on Senior Night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It didn’t go the way they might have hoped.

Run ragged Tuesday by a King’s team with state title aspirations, the Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team got crunched on Senior Night.

Even on an evening when their six-foot freshman prodigy wasn’t at the top of her game, the visiting Knights had an answer for everything the Wolves tried, exiting the gym with a 59-11 win.

The loss, coming after Coupeville put up its fewest points in any game this season, drops CHS to 5-4 in North Sound Conference play, 7-9 overall.

The Wolves, who are guaranteed to be the #3 seed from their league when the double-elimination district playoffs start Feb. 4, close the regular season Friday at Granite Falls.

Things got off to a nice start Tuesday when Coupeville honored seniors Nicole Laxton, Lindsey Roberts, and Ema Smith before tip-off.

After the ball was tossed up in the air, however, things got much tougher.

King’s features frosh phenom Jada Wynn, who played in the junior NBA world tournament before attending a single day of high school.

On this night, though, she took a back seat, picking up four fouls, including an offensive charge after Wolf freshman Ja’Kenya Hoskins stood her ground, and scored “just” 10 points.

The Knights, a deep, talented, polished team, merely shrugged, with sophomores Claire Gallagher and Mia Flor tossing in 17 and 12 respectively.

Coupeville, as a team, didn’t crack double digits until the next-to-last play of the third quarter, then went scoreless in the fourth.

Down 8-0 in the early going, but dodging bullets as King’s had some shooting issues of its own, at least for a bit, the Wolves finally got on the scoreboard six minutes into the game.

The first bucket came courtesy Ema Smith, and it gave her 201 points for her prep career, making her just the 55th Wolf girl to top that mark since the modern program began in 1974.

Unfortunately for CHS, that was its only basket of any kind for quite a bit.

By the time Hannah Davidson swooped in, snatched a rebound and went back up strong for a second-chance bucket, the game was 21-2 in favor of King’s and slipping away quickly.

To make sure to drive the point home, the Knights followed up Davidson’s put-back by nailing back-to-back three-balls, two of the eight treys they hit on the evening.

A 27-7 halftime deficit ballooned badly after the halftime break, as King’s, continuing to play with its customary take-no-prisoners style, went on a 25-4 romp in the third.

Two buckets from Roberts, one off a nice dish by Scout Smith, gave CHS fans some brief respite, but, ultimately, it was a game the Wolves will do well to quickly scrub from their brain pans.

But, just because it was a one-sided affair doesn’t mean there weren’t a few bright spots.

Coupeville coach David King praised the play of Roberts, who had to fight through a constant wave of defenders, as well as Davidson’s work on the boards, and defensive dynamo Tia Wurzrainer’s scrappiness while still contesting passes in the late going.

Roberts finished with four points Tuesday, lifting her to 422 for her career.

She needs just two more buckets to pass Cassidi Rosenkrance (423), Mika Hosek (424), and Sarah Powell (425) and become the #20 scorer in program history.

Chelsea Prescott added three free-throws in support of Roberts, with Davidson and Ema Smith providing the night’s other buckets.

Roberts had a team-best eight rebounds, Avalon Renninger yanked down five boards and doled out three assists, with Scout Smith collecting five boards, two blocks and a steal.

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Big effort, but bigger foe

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Mollie Bailey slapped home a pair of buckets Tuesday as the Coupeville JV girls tangled with powerful King’s. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It was a brawl, then it was a blowout.

The Coupeville High School JV girls basketball squad stood tall for nine minutes Tuesday, pushing visiting King’s to the brink.

Then, the Knights remembered they have a roster stocked full of AAU vets with dreams of playing college ball, and they reverted to form, exploding on separate runs of 15-0, 20-0, and 12-0.

What was a 10-9 CHS lead after Morgan Stevens rained down a fall-away jumper to open the second quarter turned into a 58-23 King’s win, and you can’t say it wasn’t expected.

The Knights second squad is a shiny 11-4 this season, having lost only to 3A and 4A schools and one of the state’s premier 1A schools, Cashmere.

But, while the Wolves fell to 4-3 in North Sound Conference play, 8-7 overall, heading into their season finale Friday at Granite Falls, they made some inroads.

The 23 points is the most the King’s JV has surrendered to a conference foe this season, and is a solid nine-point improvement from the first time the schools met, a 49-14 Knights win.

Coupeville came out aggressively Tuesday, using inspired rebounding from Ja’Kenya Hoskins to force King’s to up its game.

Early buckets from Mollie Bailey, off a sweet feed from Anya Leavell, and Hoskins, off of an offensive rebound, staked the Wolves to a 4-2 lead, the first of four positive scores for CHS.

Izzy Wells drained a put-back after snagging a rebound to make it 6-5, Abby Mulholland twirled in a jumper off a pass from Audrianna Shaw to put Coupeville up 8-7, then Stevens netted her bucket off a Leavell set-up pass.

The action was crisp, the Wolves were scrambling for loose balls and caroms, and anything seemed possible.

And then death came from above.

King’s dropped in a trio of three-balls, part of the seven it would hit in the game, and, in the blink of an eye, a 15-0 run had changed everything.

Mulholland did her best to get the Wolves back into the flow, netting back-to-back jumpers, with the second bucket coming of yet another superb pass from Leavell, but King’s wasn’t having it.

Scoring the final eight points of the half, then 24 of the first 26 after the break, the visitors put the game far out of reach.

From the final three minutes of the second quarter until the last half of the fourth, Coupeville could only hit one single, solitary shot, though it was a beautiful, crowd-pleasing jumper from hard-working freshman Alana Mihill.

While the rim was unforgiving, the Wolves never stopped working, and they garnered some respect from their foes at the end, closing the game on a 7-2 surge.

Wells went off for five of her team-high seven points during that part of the game, while Bailey added an artful layup.

Mulholland tossed in six points to back Wells, with Bailey (4), Mihill (2), Stevens (2), and Hoskins (2) also scoring.

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Free-throw woes knife Wolf girls

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Ema Smith rippled the nets for 10 points Friday, as Coupeville made a play to upset Cedar Park Christian. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The upset died at the free-throw line.

The Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team played often-superb defense Friday night, hit some pressure-packed shots, and didn’t flinch when facing a very-talented foe.

But the one part of the game that the Wolves totally controlled — walking to the charity stripe with the clock stopped, then sinking shots — failed, and so did any hope of shocking visiting Cedar Park Christian.

Bouncing 12 of 22 free throws off the rim, Coupeville fell 37-28 and saw its chances to finish in the top two of the six-team North Sound Conference vanish.

With the loss, the Wolves drop to 5-3 in league play, 7-8 overall, and clinch third place, a slot better than where the preseason coaches poll had them finishing.

Coupeville, which has two regular season games left, will finish behind league champ King’s (8-0) and CPC (7-2), and ahead of Granite Falls (2-6), Sultan (2-6), and South Whidbey (0-7).

After hosting King’s next Tuesday, and traveling to Granite Friday, the Wolves open the double-elimination district tourney Feb. 4 on the road at Meridian.

If Coupeville had won Friday, it would have gone a half game up on CPC and still been in contention for second-place, and the home playoff opener which comes with that finish.

And, after losing by 20 points in Bothell the first time these teams played, the Wolves looked like a team very interested in playing out that scenario.

Forcing CPC star Irena Korolenko into a poor shooting performance, at least for awhile, Coupeville claimed the early lead and stayed within a bucket late into the third quarter.

Hannah Davidson, who hit the boards with a nice intensity, opened the scoring when she ripped a carom away from an Eagle and went right back up with it for the night’s first bucket.

Add an Ema Smith free throw and the Wolves were up 3-0, and ready to claim the win if the game had been called early.

It was not, however, and CPC reclaimed the lead for good at 4-3 late in the first quarter on a turnaround jumper from Korolenko.

Up 8-3 at the initial break, the Eagles stretched the lead to 10-3, but Coupeville didn’t back down this time out.

Ema Smith spiked a CPC shot back up-court, then followed the ball and sank a long three-ball when Scout Smith threaded a pass between defenders and onto her older teammate’s fingertips.

Another Scout Smith special, this one an outlet pass which soared through the air and dropped into the waiting arms of a sprinting Lindsey Roberts, kept the pressure on.

While Korolenko had eight points at the half, that was a bucket less than she scored in just the first quarter the last time the teams met, and a 14-10 deficit at the break certainly didn’t seem insurmountable.

CHS kept up the pressure in the third, forcing the Eagles out of their comfort zone, and staying within a basket until the final minute of the frame.

The Wolves couldn’t quite get over the hump, however, cutting the margin to 14-13 and 18-16, but missing free throws which would have given them the lead.

Meanwhile, Korolenko, who took, and hit, all seven Cedar Park free throws on the night, whistled four straight freebies through the net to close the third, then opened the fourth with a three-point play the hard way.

Suddenly, a one-score game had momentarily gotten out of hand, with the visitors up 27-16 and seemingly pulling away.

But, after some words of wisdom from coach David King, the Wolves got buckets from Ema Smith and Chelsea Prescott, packaged around a free throw, and the deficit was back to a manageable six points.

Korolenko is a star for a reason, though, and, after being “held” to 14 points through three quarters, she torched the Wolves for 11 more in the fourth.

While two long jumpers and a layup off an inbound pass stung, the ultimate killer came on a basket set up when Cedar Park saved a runaway ball at the last millisecond, and, against all odds, turned it into a gut-punch of a bucket.

Scrambling towards the line, Korolenko got her finger on the ball, somehow spinning it back onto the court as she crashed into the back wall.

As the ball hit the court, it took a perfect spin (for CPC), shooting between two Wolves and right to a surprised Eagle, who immediately hit a soft lil’ jumper in the paint.

Coupeville kept coming, with Scout Smith nailing a three-ball from the top of the arc to cut the margin to 33-28, but the Wolves couldn’t score across the final minute-plus, and Korolenko ended things with two more perfect free throws.

CHS, which missed three free throws in the first quarter, four more in the second, three in the third, and two in the fourth, was left to contemplate what could have been.

And what could still be, if the teams meet a third time in the postseason.

Ema Smith, who has been on a shooting tear of late, paced the Wolves with 10 points, pulling her within a single free throw of becoming the 55th Coupeville girl to score 200 in their career.

Davidson (4), Roberts (4), Scout Smith (4), Prescott (3), Avalon Renninger (2), and Ja’Kenya Hoskins (1) also scored, while Roberts and Hoskins snatched eight rebounds apiece.

Renninger dealt out three assists, Scout Smith pilfered two steals, and Ema Smith registered two blocks.

 

No JV:

Cedar Park doesn’t have a second team, so Coupeville’s young guns sat Friday night out.

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